Preview: All Night Horror Madness at Cameo Cinema

The Fly, Day of the Dead, Miracle Mile and more to screen at nocturnal scare-fest

'It's definitely something everyone should do at least once,' says Matt Palmer, the deranged mastermind of All Night Horror Madness. As the name suggests, it's a nocturnal marathon of movie mayhem: five horror films screened back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back.

'When we started this we never really thought it would go past just one event, but the hunger for it just seems to have increased, which is fantastic,' says Palmer. It's a hunger that, sadly, has outpaced the supply of suitable material – in a recent Facebook post, Palmer announced that ANHM would now only host one line-up a year instead of two, citing the dwindling number of truly great horrors as the main reason for winding down.

'There's a lot of fantastic horror movies out there but I think it's much tougher ask in the context of an all-night event,' Palmer explains. 'If you play something at 5.30am that doesn't immediately grab people you can feel the audience quickly getting agitated and bored. The stuff we pick for ANHM generally has a real tightness and pace about it, usually some level of dementedness, and very often a dose of genuine humour.'

For ANHM's December edition, that means screenings of mental 80s slasher Happy Birthday to Me, genre hybrid Miracle Mile and George Romero's Day of the Dead (all screening from 35mm prints), plus David Cronenberg's The Fly and a surprise movie that Palmer says will 'totally melt people's minds'. Oh, and Palmer's 'totally un-rock and roll secret tip' for staying awake? 'Bring a good supply of apples!'